Chapter 11: Fated Meeting by Moonlight.
Damn Nathan, you finally managed to impress me.
I made this quiet admission to myself while staring at the roof of my room.
Formerly an extra shed for Loco’s chemicals, I had taken the room back when I moved in with them. Loco and Luna had offered me a place to sleep in their own home, but it had few enough rooms that I preferred this one. Although I did move to the other room that they had set up for guests when I knew that experiments were going to be lasting into the night.
Luna liked to joke that I was like a cat because of my habit of changing my sleeping spot regularly. I had grown fond of the analogy recently, especially as I realized that cats were missing some of the genetic markers that Anton had claimed were signs of domesticated animals.
Stop trying to escape the problem DeMorte… I sighed, not sure if that voice was my own or from my child-self the truth was annoying and I kept trying to concentrate on what I would do. The problem was that I had very few good choices.
It was so annoying that I actually considered using everyone in the village for experiments, regardless of what would happen to them afterward, before disappearing into the forest and just dealing with the Guilt when it came.
Earlier, before the Histones had finished eating and gone into storytelling mode for the villagers, I finally managed to get enough information from them get a vague idea what was going on behind the scenes with Nathan and the mayor.
Although they would not tell me exactly what they found, there told me enough to make a fairly educated guess. Specifically, since I had wondered around the area beyond the village, I knew that there were no large ruins, rare organisms, or illusion spells covering any combination of the two. That meant that, for the Histone and Jalon to be reacting like they were, they had likely found something underground. It could have been relics of some sort, but relics that did not give off magical power or bloodlust would not necessitate a mage and formal history coming to investigate.
This left me with several possibilities, including a mage’s cache, however, judging by the way they reacted and after asking some tangent questions, I figured out that the visit was mandated for something like what Nathan found.
Although I could not be sure, based on the information I had, I thought that Nathan had found a special metal pocket somewhere in the area.
According to my previous world’s knowledge, there were 3 basic types of metals that interacted well with mana. These 3 metals were iron, silver, and gold. Iron was erroneously known as the ‘magic killer’ both here and in my previous world because most iron would naturally suck up and ‘filter’ mana. By rapidly processing mana through it, iron eliminating the instructions that made up spells and wards, disintegrating them. Silver and gold, on the other hand, could be infused with mana and would hold on to the mana fairly well, making the metals very valuable for enchantment purposes.
What I did not know, however, was that there were 3 unique metals in this world which also interacted with mana. Specifically, these metals were adamantine, mithril, and zugoran. Adamantine was a metal that had somehow absorbed and layered mana into a super dense, heavy, metal that could withstand both spells and physical damage. Adamantine was the metal that allowed the republic of Albatross to stay independent as armor made from it allowed regular men to more easily fight mages. Mithril could absorb mana to become lighter and stronger for as long as someone fed it mana, but unlike adamantine, mithril could charge and discharge its mana amount, making it ideal for a mage’s battle armor. Zugoran was the final of the three unique metals and had a history all its own.
The Elves had known of the other 2 metals, but they hated adamantine for making even non-magical humans dangerous. While they viewed mithril was considered the metal of the elite and even touching it was considered a crime. Then they discovered zugoran sometime during the Enslavement and it quickly became their favorite metal. This was because zugoran could process mana into wild and random spells. Unlike both adamantine and mithril, zugoran could be easily remolded and cast into pitch black weapons that would cast spells that would sometimes destroy their wielders and at other times, amplify their powers several fold.
Zurgoran, as it turned out, while random in its raw form, would seal its nature when processed, making some extremely powerful and extremely deadly weapons. To the present date, however, no one, human or Elf, had managed to figure out why zurgoran worked like it did, or learn of a way to figure out its nature without testing the finished weapon. Naturally, the Elven elite forced humans and lesser elves to take the risk of trying out each of the weapons cast in fights to the death. This was done both for Elven entertainment and to find out what weapons were more prone towards positive enchantments.
As humans rose and fought back against the Elves to end the Enslavement, though, zurgoran became the personification of the cruelty of the Elven elite. Although the Histones had managed to record that the story only started near the end of the Enslavement, those who knew of the 3 metals typically called them the trinity metals.
The metal of mana, gifted by the gods long ago, was mithril. The metal of the body, or of the ‘earth’ as some said, was adamantine, forged in the creation of the world by accident. Finally, the metal of darkness and evil, of chaos and corruption, Zugoran, that grew from the corpse of the old god of creation, Zug, who was killed for his cruelty to his fellow gods over their attempts to create life on their own.
There was even a theory arose that Elves themselves were a result of random zugoran spells, discharging in the wilderness of ancient times, but that did not matter.
What mattered was that Nathan had likely found one of these not far from the village. It was also probably protected by distraction runes, which would be why neither the villagers nor I were unable to find it. Instead, it all but guaranteed that Nathan could only have found it by accident. The problem would show up when someone asked questions like 'where it was?' or 'when did Nathan find it?' That was the area where Nathan and firmly confused me and earned my grudging respect.
I knew, roughly, how far away the site was because of how far Nathan and Jalon. If they could have traveled to there and back on horseback in only a day, off road, I could at, least place, the distance. Assuming they took an hour to explore I could narrow that range down even further, however, that brought up another question: when did he find it?
Nathan had only been in the area a few times in the last year. Given the communication lag and how regularly he tried to correspond with Xiphos, it could have only been recently that Nathan discovered anything rare enough to bring Jalon and the Histone to the village. Of course, he should have come back injured or at least shown some type of noticeable reaction if he found something rare nearby, but I saw no such reaction. He did not even visit the area frequently, only exploring beyond the village once in the last few phases. He might have found it a few years ago, but as far as my child-self could remember, the only times he had really come out here for more than a day or two were after he sent me to Loco. This meant that I should have seen him at some time after his discovery acting differently, but that never happened.
As anyone who held an unsecure position of power would know, I was just a bit too paranoid to let something like that slip by me. As an orphan, a bandit, a bandit leader, and especially as a king, I noticed when people started acting differently.
The only explanations that I could come up with at first were that Nathan was either a sociopathic liar who could fool even me (and I had experience with that) or he deliberately did not tell me he was in the area when he found it. However, my child-self also pointed out that my oldest brother, Hoplis, and Florence had come out here several times before too, which could have meant that Nathan had lied and just taken credit for it. Still, they had not wondered around the area and went straight home soon enough, leaving me with another (much more likely) option… Nathan had known about his ‘new discovery’ for much longer than what others knew about.
A secret like this could only be kept if people were willing to bury bodies though, which brought up the name ‘Nathan the Coward,’ as the river stalker clan called him, and Nathan, the savior of the mayor. It was so very easy for me to put that event into the story, the narrative, which I was painting in my head for Nathan.
I could almost see him either rescuing the mayor like in the story and just happening to find a small cave (or whatever), that they decided to keep a secret on their own. Or, if they just made up the whole story as he and the mayor found whatever secret was hiding in the area and killed the river stalker to keep it a secret. If it was something like that…
No, there were too many possibilities. The bottom line was that Nathan was playing some type of game and had his daughter aligned to take advantage of whatever the mayor’s son ended up doing with his life. With some hints from the Histones that the mysterious discovery would be rewarded handsomely, I found myself realizing that Nathan might just succeed in making sure that his grandchild were ennobled.
Unfortunately for me, that left me with few good options if I wanted to escape the village life without too much resistance. Originally, I had planned to disappear around age 13 or 14 to find and change the spell that could change my gender. If I failed to do so in the time it would take me to hit puberty – which would happen sometime when I was 16 – I would manually change my body as much as possible.
Sewing up and removing the vaginal cavity would cause some problems biologically, but I had a good idea how to stop the menstrual cycle and breasts would not be an issue. Few female mages ever developed significantly in that area. Other issues could be dealt with when they arose. After I …
I stood up and threw on a cloak. I might know more than any other human being in this new world about the human body, but that did not mean that I was perfect. Even with my ever increasing level of control over my own body, I still let my mind wander from the problem at hand.
Stepping out of my shed/home I took a walk around the village while trying to concentrate. Everyone else had gone to sleep hours ago, even with the 2 Histones happily telling everyone stories until late in the evening.
If Nathan got noticed, which he would, then his family would get noticed and affected as well. I was still too young to just disappear into the night without causing trouble, both here and wherever I went to, a child traveling alone would garner attention. I could try and stay as I was until I would get recruited by magic talent recruits and then disappear. However, depending on Nathan’s discovery and its impact, it would not be too unlikely that some high noble would try and sponsor my education, making disappearing both difficult and potentially dangerous.
In this world, nobles were not supposed to make war on one another anymore, so instead they became hyper sensitive about their names and reputations. Where insulting a noble in my previous world might result in economic damage or outright warfare, here even the slightest insult was supposed to be settled by magical contests and duels. If such duels were refused, it was usually an invitation to a shadow duel that, if I read between the lines of common knowledge, seemed to involve dispatching assassins and arsonists in the dead of night.
I could run, I could kill, I could hide, and most importantly, I could die if I was not careful. I lived one life watching for self-righteous mercenary assassins. Back then, after discovery, they would not hesitate to not only try and kill me but give me a sermon during the fight of how I was an evil blight upon the world that have to be removed.
I snorted, maybe I should become a self-righteous mercenary in this world. It would solve most of my problems as ‘adventurers’ were usually given special rights and allowances that most people could not dream of. Not that they were any different from other mercenaries, except the sermoning, they all moved for job requests in exchange for money.
Osiris might break out of the Ovals and come hunt me down himself if I did that though. I smiled to myself, I missed my old group, Cook, Wong, Sera, Long-Paul, and Osiris were good people at heart. They just liked to hide that fact away from the world outside our little group, or they did back when it was just a few of us. Especially Osiris, I thought to myself, He was a good man, I hope he made a better king than I did.
I stopped walking for a moment and stretched, I still felt old on occasion, despite the young body I was currently controlling. My child-self had actually fallen asleep in my head somehow, leaving me in control of our body. How that had worked was still a mystery to me, but I had more pressing matters to look into. Including a sound that I was picking up from the edge of the village.
If I was not mistaken, the *swish* sound of the air was sword practice. At this time of night though…
Curious, I walked over to the village palisade. Although it could more easily be called a tall fence than a true palisade, especially as no one guarded it at night. All villages apparently had an ancient custom to always keep some protection between human groups and the outside. Although if this was a remnant from the Elven-Soul wars or just an instinct to feel safe, I was not sure.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
When I reached the edge of the village where the palisade stood I saw him. Since my eyes were better than an average person’s, especially in the dark, it was easy to identify Dras patiently working through the different sword stances.
Automatically evaluating him despite myself, I gave him a 9th circle for effort, but a 3rd circle for form. The boy needed more practice in the ways of martial movements, he was wasting energy with every swing. Based on his moves and the fact that he did occasionally get the forms correct, his slips were more likely from not paying attention. He probably had a teacher that personally watched him train until recently.
I mentally corrected his stances and noticed that the sword technique he was using was similar to a pair of dueling techniques I knew from my previous world. It made me wonder if other techniques would be similar to me, but since all martial movements were based on the human body, it would be more surprising if they were not familiar to me.
After a few minutes, Dras apparently decided that he needed a rest and saw me. I was not too far away so I waved politely and resisted the temptation to laugh as he tried to hide his embarrassment. Under a clear night with the moon (something I still found odd – a ‘moon’ instead of a second sun was just weird) I could easily see his flushed face, but he probably had a hard time seeing more than my general features.
Dras walked towards me and tried to pretend that he was not embarrassed in the slightest. “Miss Bella? What are you doing out and about at this time of night?”
I made sure that my smile was polite and not teasing when I replied. “I had trouble sleeping so I decided to take a walk. I did not expect to find John’s guard practicing late into the night.”
He shifted uncomfortably “I do not sleep like most people.”
I blinked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I only need to sleep around half the amount of time that my friends do.” He sighed. “I do not know why, but it has just always been that way for me.”
I looked blankly at him and quietly wondered what the odds were that I would run into someone like him. “Come here,” I told him, extending a hand towards his face.
Surprisingly, he stepped back. “Why?”
I felt my sarcastic side try to interject, but I kept my quip about pinching his cheeks to myself and explained. “I have a talent for healing and I want to see what it thinks of your little condition.”
Hesitantly, the brat came over and let me grab his head. Instantly, my talent started screaming as Dras exhaled in pain. The poor brat’s mana channels had been overloaded beyond their capabilities and were useless.
Mana channels were like veins or arteries, except instead of carrying blood to and from the heart to the rest of the body, they spread mana throughout a mage’s body and allowed them to absorb mana through energy cultivation. Dras, though, looked like he had flooded his channels with more mana than they could handle, meaning that, while he had mana channels like I or any other mage did, he was magically castrated. It should have been impossible because of how flexible mana channels were, but I clearly had to rethink what I termed impossible.
Oh and I also noticed that he was telling the truth about his sleeping patterns. I could not tell exactly what mutation was causing it, not at the quick glance my talent was giving me, but I could tell that he was not lying at the least.
“Heno!” Dras cursed and broke away from me and stumbled backward until he fell on the ground and started groaning.
“What in the Ovals happened to you?” I asked, staring at him.
“Ovals? What in the name of the gods did you do to me?” he groaned.
After staring at him for a moment, I walked around him while explaining. “Your mana channels were destroyed, overloaded with mana, years ago. You are just reacting to your talent trying to react when it cannot.”
Looking up from the ground at me, he looking both confused and in pain. “I am a burnout?”
They have a name for something like this? I thought, slightly scared, exactly how often does this happen? “A what?”
“Most mages- argh” he stopped speaking as the branch that he was trying to prop himself up with broke under his weight. Likely once been some child’s plaything, he growled at the remains and tossed it away before pushing himself upright. I made no move to help him as he took a deep breath and continued. “Most mages under 4 circles burn themselves out as children. I did not realize that I was one of them.”
I frowned, as far as I could tell there were no major differences in biology between the humans of my previous world and this one. Maybe it was environmental? Or some type of mutation? “I never heard of it. It only affects the mages below 3 magic circles worth of power?”
Dras nodded, taking deep breaths, “It is common enough that I do not know of anyone who tested below the 4th circle in the last 200 years.” I stared at him horrified. “Of course, the Histones might know someone, but they are rare.” He nodded to me and started to back away. “Regardless, do not worry about me Miss Bella, I hope you get some sleep.”
“Are you sure you–” I began to ask him before being cut off.
“I am fine” He stated, half turning back towards me. “Perfectly fine-ah!” What happened next could have been the oddest way to die that I had ever heard of or seen. As he waved to me, Dras seemed to trip over his own feet and, as he fell, naturally put out his hand to brake his fall. Only to hit the crooked branch that he broke earlier and have it stick up as he fell.
[Author: If anyone is curious, this actually happened to me once, but the branch only left a slight scrape because of the angle. Made for an interesting scene though]
I could only stare in wonder as Dras managed so accidentally stab himself in the throat with the branch. I suddenly remember the day I met Cook and how he managed to kill a guard with only a fart that made the man fall to his death.
As Dras rolled around on the ground, clutching at his throat as it bled splendidly -horribly I mean- I let a little laugh slip. It really was one of the oddest things I had ever seen. Dras, however, did not think so as he rolled over and began gagging at me – obviously wanting me to go get help.
“I am sorry for laughing Dras-” He blinked at that name. “-however that was the single most ridiculous thing that I have ever seen.” I shook my head. “Seriously now. That hole of yours is too big for a potion to fix too.” I looked at the sky and grunted. The Nalks did that, I could not think of any other explanation.
I looked back down at Dras and shook my head again. “I can save you,” I told him, “But the catch is that you cannot tell anyone that I did. Agreed?” He nodded frantically as more blood slipped through his fingers.
I walked over, preparing 2 spells, the first of which I activated with a touch to his forehead, making him pass out. The second though was a forbidden spell that I preferred. It was called ‘Gorith’s shroud’ back on my previous world and it had one purpose: To claim the area around the caster as part of them. It was actually a derivative of soul magic and therefore forbidden, but it had one very distinct advantage over every other magic I knew.
As I claimed the area around Dras and myself, a black miasma representing my mana enveloped the area and shielded us from all prying eyes, including, according to legend, the gods themselves.
If the Nalks or someone else did influence Dras’ little stumble, for whatever twisted reasons, I did not want them seeing me actually healing him. Right now no one would be able to see us or sense any spell was being used.
“You would not know what I am talking about,” I grunted, as I started healing the unconscious Dras. “However, the Guilt would have made me suffer for leaving you to die when I could have saved you.” Casting another spell to gather up some of the blood he lost, I made sure that it was clean of foreign material before quickly giving it back to him with a make-shift transfusion spell. Hopefully, there would be no resulting infection as I could not risk trying the antibiotic spell on him. I needed there to be no marks or traces of my mana remaining, just in case he decided to tell Jalon about how I saved him.
After 10 minutes or so, his throat was completely healed without a scar and to the best of my ability, I could not find any traces of my mana around the wound or in his body. I made sure to get rid of the remaining blood stains too, from everything except the branch that caused the wound in the first place.
I dispelled the shroud and made sure that no one else was around before I woke Dras up, least I save him only to have him wake up inside an evil looking black dome. There was no way that could end badly…
After a moment, Dras came around and I stood back with the stick in my hands. His blood would be a valuable sample and it would serve as a good reminder for Dras. After seeing me and the bloodstained branch he quickly grabbed at his throat, but I just put my finger to my lips to indicate his silence.
“You will say nothing.” I said simply and after he nodded, I simply turned and walked away, back to my bed. I used more mana than I originally intended to heal him so I was fairly well drained. My stomach attested to the fact as it growled, demanding food.
I had a bad avotato in my room that, while inedible by now, could be absorbed for some calories, in addition to another one that I had snuck from the pantry.
Looking at the bloodstained branch, I wondered if I could create a fake body using it. Not to give intelligence to or raise, but to try and help me simulate human genetic reaction to my tampering. Still a lot of materials would be required to make a full human body with… Could I use an illusion spell to…?
I stopped and looked up into the night sky. Leo caused that meeting like it was fated, probably to get me to think along this precise line of thought. “Stoning Nalks” I repeated, this time with a grin. They just solved my problem.
If I could connect 2 magical devices together and make one of them project an illusion of the test subject that would contain the other then I could remotely monitor the subject for obvious mutations or changes in behavior. It was only the base idea of what I needed, but it would, at the very least, give me a starting point.
Although I had to admit, if I found a way to transmit messages like I had an idea to do with images, I would revolutionize warfare in this world… assuming the Nalks had not already given a similar idea to someone else of course.
* * *
A couple of days later:
On the road south to the capital:
Newsman Asat had waited until he and his apprentice were several days away from Entrials and out of range of anyone else who could hear them before he started asking Zana what she thought of their special visit.
A lesser known duty of every Histone was to keep a personal journal in addition to their factual one. Saying that someone won a battle on a certain day was important, but saying who you thought was going to win the battle ahead of time and why was equally important. A recorder, the lowest traveling rank among the Histones, was duty bound to record the official record of event separate from her personal journal and now that it was only the 2 of them, Asat took the opportunity to test her.
He knew what the official record would say, but he wanted Zana to tell him what she thought of the people involved in the record.
“I think he staged it,” Zana stated bluntly, “That mine had been excavated sometime in the past few decades and I would guess that Nathan has a small stockpile of Mithril somewhere because of it.”
Asat did not comment, despite the fact that he personally agreed, but instead continued to ask questions. He ended up agreeing with most of what she said, but noticed that she still missed a few details that would have influenced her opinion. One detail, however, she noticed and he missed.
“What do you think of Bella, Zana?” Asat asked.
Here, Zana hesitated for the first time before replying. “I thought she was a strong headed little girl at first, but she asked very sharp questions.” Zana paused and Asat waited for her to continue. “I think she scared me.”
Asat blinked in surprise at that. The little girl was entertaining and a cute, if odd, little thing, but scary? “Why?”
“Her ears,” Zana replied looking slightly pale. Asat sighed and was about to give her a lecture about appearances, but she continued to speak. “Her ears were twitching all the time when we first arrived, even when she kept a straight face, but by the time we left they had stopped.”
Asat looked over at Zana and stopped asking questions as they continued south. Wondering just what would become of Nathan and his family, the Histones traveled to the capital and silently swore to do their duty and keep the records of humanity safe.
In the past or the future, the Histones would record what would happen for the ages.
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PS: random question: is the title to long?